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Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Cost Analysis of a new building with concrete with recycled content
Dalarna University, School of Information and Engineering, Energy Systems in Built Environments.
2023 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The interest for climate change mitigation is unprecedented, with countries around the world implementing their environmental plans to reach climate neutrality. Sweden is one of such countries with a target to achieve zero net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045. In coherence with the climate goals of Sweden, the application of tools to estimate the environmental impact of processes or systems have been prioritized and two of the most common tools are the life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) methodologies. This report is a comprehensive study of a three-storey residential building with the use of these methodologies and a focus on the environmental performance of concrete with recycled content. The main objective was to compare the environmental impact and cost implications of using concrete versus recycled concrete. The study considered three different cases: In the first case, the building's exterior walls and floors were constructed using pre-mixed concrete; this served as a baseline for comparison. In the second case, five different types of recycled concrete available in the market were analysed. These included concrete with recycled aggregates, concrete with Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS) content in the cement, concrete with fly ash content in the cement, concrete with recycled binders in cement, and high-strength concrete. These recycled concrete variants were assessed for both the exterior walls and floors of the building in this case. Lastly, the third case explored the replacement of the structural material in the exterior walls with timber while keeping concrete for the floors. This alternative construction approach aimed to reduce the environmental impact associated with the building's materials. The results of the analysis revealed that concrete had the highest environmental impact in terms of CO2e emissions among all resources used and across all three cases. The concrete with 60% GGBS in the cement was found to perform the best in terms of environmental sustainability when compared to the five types of recycled concrete analysed. Furthermore, the energy use stage emerged as the second highest global warming impact contributor which highlights the importance of energy efficient building practices and technologies. In terms of cost analysis, the study determined that the operational stage of the building had the highest Net Present Value (NPV), primarily because of the recurring cash flows.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-46547OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-46547DiVA, id: diva2:1784757
Subject / course
Energy Technology
Available from: 2023-07-31 Created: 2023-07-31

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf